


Oponthoud

by melforbes



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8840677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melforbes/pseuds/melforbes
Summary: On a whim, he takes her to Amsterdam. Written for leiascully's "International" XF Writing Challenge prompt.





	

For reasons he can’t remember, he’s always been told that the Amsterdam airport is wonderful, that it spans for what seem to be miles and that it’s a wonderful place to spend a few hours before you head to Japan, Morocco, Russia, wherever you’ll be after your layover. However, he's barely seen any of the airport, and the endless security checks here have stuck them at their gate while their departure is delayed by yet another hour. Though the weather in the Netherlands was brilliant during their stay, the air chilly enough that she stuck close to him as they walked the canals, snow surprised them today, extended their fleeting vacation by a day more, maybe even two.

At first, he minded being tethered to this section of the airport; he’s out of books to read, and given that they’re supposed to remain at the gate until boarding begins, he has no entertainment except for the little television in the uppermost corner of the gate, a television that’s playing exclusively in Dutch. However, he doesn’t mind feeling stuck anymore, for she’s asleep alongside him, her head lolling against his shoulder as she snores softly enough that only he can hear her. Across from him, two parents and a little boy sit, the child ramming a plastic dinosaur into a toy truck and making battle noises, so Mulder smiles. Though he’s heard that the Amsterdam airport is a good place to be stuck for a layover, he figures his comfort greatly differs from that of everyone else here.

_“Hey, Scully,” he said as he arrived late to work that Friday morning. Luckily, Skinner had stopped checking his timecard sometime around 1991, so he could afford to miss a minute or two or twenty. “Got any big plans for the weekend?”_

_She sat in his chair, her taupe pantsuit unbuttoned, her glasses slipping down her nose. In front of her was a pile of paperwork as thick as his hand, and based on the four dead pens in the trash bin, she hadn’t just started to work through it._

_“Yes,” she said. “I’ve got an article to finish, and-”_

_“What if we flew to Europe?”_

_He was feeling lucky, adventurous, and particularly impulsive; plus, he’d watched_ Traffic _the night beforehand. Furrowing her brow, she took off her glasses, leaned forward; though he knew her response would not be one of approval, he kept his coat on anyway, figured he would be fleeing in mere moments._

_“I don’t know what you mean.”_

_“Europe, Scully, the continent across the pond,” he said, snapping his fingers and heading back toward their office’s door. “What is it, ten minutes to the airport? Fifteen? It’s seven if you drive us there.”_

_“I still don’t understand,” she said, but she stood up anyway, followed him as he headed back to the elevator._

_“Let’s see,” he said, stopping short in the hallway and counting on his gloved fingers. “There’s Spain, France…Italy? I know you like wine, but I’m not sure it’s the season for-”_

_“You can’t be serious.”_

_“Where did fifteen-year-old Dana Scully dream of going?” he asked. “Did she want a cafe au lait in Paris, or was she looking to taste the continent’s finest borscht?”_

_"Is this another alien goose-chase that you neglected to tell me about even though you've already bought plane tickets for it?"_

_"First of all, it's only a goose-chase if you're chasing geese," he corrected, "and no, this is not bureau-related in the least."_

_She huffed in disapproval, crossed her arms over the turtleneck that terribly matched her suit. At that, he looked down, felt mildly defeated even though the idea had been destined to fail._

_“When was the last time you did something impulsive, Scully?” he asked. “When was the last time you took a real break?”_

_And when they got to the airport and went to buy international tickets, she shouted out_ Amsterdam _after being prompted for a location, so there they went, their luggages merely carry-ons because she didn’t want them to have to pay extra, their bags packed in only minutes while they muddled around in each other’s apartments; in the packing process, she forgot her contact lenses, and he forgot to bring socks, was forced to borrow her woolens instead._

Against his shoulder, she stirs, her short red hair messy against the wool of his jacket.

“Hey, sleepy,” he says softly while she sits up.

They aren’t going to talk about the closeness or about how unabashedly she falls asleep next to him nowadays. He wonders if they’ll ever talk about it.

"Have they announced when we’re boarding yet?” she asks.

Glancing outside, he watches as fat snowflakes fall heavily on the runway, the planes covered in a few inches at least. While she stares the weather down, she sighs.

“At this rate, we’ll be stuck here all night,” she frets.

“It’s okay,” he says, nudging her.

“Not really,” she counters.

“Why not?”

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, so he cringes; oh, he’s in for it.

“First of all,” she begins in that sharp and disapproving tone that he thinks she saves only for him, “we cut work on a Friday, so we missed that day. A whole day, Mulder! And you saw how much paperwork I had! And now I’m behind on my journal article, and we won’t even make it back by Wednesday, and once we get back to the states - why wouldn't you let me bring my cell phone?”

“International rates,” he offers with a shrug, but that only earns him a glare.

“Anyway,” she continues, “we’ll probably end up with four unpaid days, and I doubt that Skinner’s going to be happy about that.”

“We could make something up, claim that _Kwade Kaas Kerel_  attacked someone again and that we needed to investigate.”

“What?"

“Do you really think that Skinner noticed our absence?”

“He’s probably wondering why the dull, throbbing pain in his backside is suddenly gone.”

“Don’t try to hide it. You had fun.”

_As they walked through Vondelpark on their way to the Van Gogh museum, he forced himself to keep his eyes forward, to stop drowsily looking down at her and searching her face for any signs of discomfort. Seven hours on a plane plus a six-hour time difference meant that his body felt shifty and wrong, but he’d grown accustomed to putting himself through travel hell; she, on the other hand, had expected to be home at this time, or at whatever time it was in the states. He wasn’t wearing a watch, so he couldn’t check the time, but quite frankly, he didn’t want to know what time it was._

_But he kept his eyes on her anyway for reasons he kept to himself, watched as she stared out at the snowy trees around them. Because of the season, the park was quiet and open, so he matched her shorter gait, decided to take his time on this walk._

_“What do you think, Scully?” he asked, breaking the soft silence between them. “Is it living up to your girlhood dreams?”_

_She smiled to herself, then met his gaze._

_“I’ve always wanted to see Dutch tulips.”_

_“Scully, I hate to break this to you, but-”_

_He interrupted himself as she laughed, her cheeks red with the cold, her eyes warm and bright in contrast to the snow._

_“I know, I know,” she said, “but I just couldn’t resist it, you know? The woman at the ticket counter seemed impatient, and there it was on the departures board, Amsterdam! I couldn’t resist.”_

_Shaking his head, he said, “I’ve never seen this side of you before.”_

_She gave a quirk of her eyebrow, said, “There’s a lot of sides of me that you haven’t seen yet, Mulder.”_

_“Yet?”_

_She let that question go unanswered._

He gives her a look, a _you know I’m right_  look, so she rolls her eyes, admits, "Yes, I _did_ have fun, but-"

"No buts!" he insists. "Fun is fun is fun, Scully."

"And paperwork is paperwork is paperwork," she says, "and I'll be swimming in it whenever we get back, _if_  we ever get back."

"Think of it this way," he explains, splaying his hands in order to seem educated and serious. "You have one fun weekend-"

"Four days, not a weekend."

"Fine. You have _four_  fun days once a year. It's once a year. Skinner glosses over it because it occurred once in a year. You still make Dean's List. You still get out of jail free."

"I'm sorry that i value my career," she says. "I'm sorry that I don’t always appreciate fantasies."

"All of my life is a fantasy."

She doesn't respond to that.

_"Two rooms, please."_

_"No, one," she countered in the lobby of The Renaissance as she whipped her credit card out long before he could even reach for his wallet._

_"Two queens or a king?"_

_"King," she said while he stood stalk-still, while she paid for the evening, while she took their room keys and led him toward the elevator._

_Once they were in the elevator, she passed him his key, to which he asked, "What was that about?"_

_She hummed a casual response, sounding as though she hadn't just booked them a single room with a single bed to share. Was there a couch? If there was a couch, he would stay on it even if its length were to be half that of his height. Suddenly, his suitcase felt heavier, the world hazier and more buzzed._

_"The room," he insisted._

_"Oh," she realized. "Well, you wouldn't let me pay for the plane tickets, so I wanted to at least cover the room."_

_Either she hadn't understood what he meant, or she was evading his question, but regardlessly, she headed to their one room with ease, unlocked the door without a second thought, led him in as though they'd done this many times before. Which we have, he reminded himself, but it was always on a government credit card and at a seedy and cheap joint; this was new, all of it, and he didn't know how to understand it without overthinking it._

_She picked up a black binder off of one of the bedside tables - given the price, this place was more than exquisite, the kind of room that was two or three times the price she paid in a place like Boston or New York - and opened it up, leafed through the restaurant-menus in there._

_"What are you in the mood for?" she asked, looking to him._

_She wore a grey sweater-dress, one that hugged the curves of her hips and went to her knees; her knee-high boots looked brand new, and given how infrequently he saw her in casual clothes, he figured this was her first time wearing them. Though her hair had been styled before they left, it subsequently went frizzy, little waves forming around her face. She'd wiped her makeup away next to him on the plane, and though she gave a casual and joking_ don't look at me, i'm hideous _, he'd been unable to look away for exactly the opposite reason._

_"I don't know," he managed._

_"We might as well go for Dutch given where we are," she said, turning through the book offhandedly. "I don't know if-"_

_"I'm paying for dinner."_

_Quickly, she looked up at him, her face blank._

_"Okay," she said, nonplussed._

_But he wanted to pay for dinner, and he wanted to share a bed with her, but he didn't want to do those things like this, while she acted as though this was nothing. He could bring her across the ocean, but he couldn't bring her to understand his intentions, but to her credit, even he didn’t quite understand his intentions._

_"How pricey do you want to go?" she asked._

_"Let's splurge," he said. "I'm all in."_

_"Okay," she said, still not fathoming what he meant._

With an intercom call, they wait for the english translation, and, _damn it_ , they're delayed for another two hours. Thankfully, the security has softened, so they can get up, can explore the rest of this airport. Leaving their bags with the attendants at the gate, they head farther into the airport, her stomach grumbling as they search for something to eat.

They settle on a sandwich shop, order croque monsieurs and to-go coffees. While they eat quietly, the rest of the airport bustles on, the usual traffic here increasing with the snow. She prays that the weather will let up soon.

"Really though," he brings it up again. "You did have a good time, right? You did enjoy this."

She chews, motions with her free hand for him to wait a moment. Swallowing, she says, "Of course I had a good time."

"Okay."

"It's just that I'm not one for grandiose vacations on short notice."

Though he wants to say _me neither_ , he's not prepared for the weight that could hold, so he takes another bite of the overrated ham-and-cheese.

"I _did_  enjoy myself," she says, and he's not sure to whom she's trying to prove that. "I...I never really expected any of that to happen. It's just that your life is your life, you know? You go about your day, you dream of other things, you don't reach for those other things. This place was always in the back of my mind, but I never dared to bring it to the front. It was either too much money or too much time spent away, and - God, I don't want to see my bank statement when I get home."

At that, he smiles, so she smiles too, and thankfully, the more expensive parts of trip were the parts he paid for. It was the least he could do.

"But that's beside the point," she insists. "Dreams feel like they're just dreams sometimes. I often forget that there's a reality out there that's within my reach. I forget that curiosity goes beyond the walls of a lab or farther a domestic flight."

He nods slowly while she wipes dijon mustard off of her lip.

_"Are you asleep?"_

_No, of course he wasn't, for he was unaccustomed to sleeping in a bed, and he was unaccustomed to sleeping alongside anyone, and he most certainly was unaccustomed to having her so close to him that he could smell the remnants of perfume on her pulse-points. He would need a heavy knock to the head in order to pass out in this situation._

_"No," he dared to say, regretted the statement afterward._

_With his back turned to her, he could calm his nerves, could write this off as nothing and evade the ongoing questions in his mind._ When are you gonna tell her? Will you ever tell her? You piece of shit, you need to tell her, or else something's going to happen, and you'll spend the rest of your life regretting your silence. She's worth so much. She means so much. You respect her enough that she deserves to know. _However, he felt her turn onto her side, could feel her gaze boring into his back, so cautiously, he leaned over to face her, their pillows so close that he could feel her breath._

_In the dark, he could make out the outlines of her, the tendrils of hair falling into her face, the angles of her jawbone, the press of her cheek against the linens. He glanced down at her pajamas, silky and suit-like and almost irredeemably Scully; though he'd seen her in a bed plenty of times, he'd never seen her in bed like this, her body soothed, her mind vulnerable. The sight made him feel simultaneously empowered, honored, and queasy._

_"I hate jet lag," she said, looking at him with a half smile._

_"Me too," he managed though the irrational part of his mind repeated_ kiss her.

_"When my family moved to Virginia from California, I was a mess for weeks," she said._

_Her voice was deeper and more hoarse, a gravelly kind of Scully that he'd only heard when she was particularly exhausted on a case._

_"My watch was set wrong, and for all of my classes at my new school, I was consistently late," she half-laughed. "And it was awful to be the new kid and the late kid all in one. I was miserable."_

_"Going back to Oxford after summers in Massachusetts was tough," he said. "I was always half-asleep during syllabus week."_

_She shifted, her body moving closer to him; he couldn't tell if that move was intentional._

_"You don't talk about Oxford often," she said, her brow furrowed in concern and curiosity._

_"It rained a lot," he explained. "I had beer sometimes. I studied on occasion."_

_"Come on," she said. "Even I did more in college than just that."_

_He took a deep breath, debated on how to elaborate. Truthfully, he hadn't much liked Oxford, the place a bounty of stress and loneliness for him, but if there was anyone he could trust with the good moments, it was her._

_"After class each day, I got into the habit of walking aimlessly around town, no real reason behind it," he explained. "I tried new pub food each time. Oh, and there was this bookstore. You would've loved it, all mahogany and red undertones with novels from every age piled all the way up to the ceiling. I spent all of my spare change there. Those were the good times, though, the ones i spent alone in Oxford. It was always hazy and humid, but it was comforting in that way. I haven't been back since."_

_She nodded softly against her pillow, asked, "Would you ever consider going back?"_

_He grimaced, said, “I'm not sure. Though I miss afternoons, I think revisiting those places might make the memories lose their magic."_

_Bittersweetly, she smiled to herself, said, "Last Christmas, it was awful to be in my brother's house. It was exactly the one I grew up in, only picked up and dropped down somewhere entirely different, and with new people living in it, and with everything awry, it felt so wrong. It felt as though someone had ripped all of those memories away from me. It felt as though my years spent there were a lie."_

_"Sometimes it's best to end on a high note even if that makes us wish for more."_

_She met his gaze, and while his mind shouted the overwhelming_ kiss her kiss her kiss her _, he turned onto his stomach, his arm brushing her own. Now, he couldn't do that, not even if he were to let himself take that chance._

_"Goodnight, Mulder," she whispered as he closed his eyes._

_When he woke, they were sharing his pillow, and he didn't mind._

"Windmills near Rotterdam," he reads off of the title card.

With her arms crossed over her chest, she's cold, but unfortunately, his coat is tucked in with his luggage back at the gate, so he can't offer it to her. Awkwardly, he stands alongside her, this painting in the Rijksmuseum exhibit of the airport serving as their entertainment. At this point, the airport may cancel all flights and reopen in the morning; though he doesn't want her to have to sleep on an airport floor tonight, that may be their predicament.

"It seems almost dire," she says, looking at the dark tones of the windmills.

"There's hope, though," he adds, looking at the background of the painting. "The sun's coming up."

"We're not going to get out of here until the sun comes up."

For lack of a better thing to say, he mumbles, "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"I'm still sorry."

She takes a deep, heavy breath - another sign that she's cold - and though he wants to reach for her, though he could take her into his arms and kiss her like a couple a few feet away is doing, he stays still.

"I've never been much good with art," he says.

"Maybe they're just windmills," she says. "Maybe that's the whole point."

He nods but silently disagrees.

_He couldn't read the little guidebook to the Van Gogh museum because it was all in Dutch, so he followed her aimlessly through the exhibits. A museum of the world, not just of the country, he knew this was, but unfortunately, the art was wasted on him. Though she fit in here, a well-dressed woman in black pants and a cowl-neck sweater that made her look, in his opinion, like a casual supermodel, he was an outcast, a guy with holes in his coat who was tugged around by the prettiest girl in the room._

_He heard once that Van Gogh ate yellow paint because he thought it would make his insides feel happy, so Mulder wondered why anyone found that romantic instead of thinking that Van Gogh was a dumbass with an idealized, naive, and remarkably uneducated view of the world. Then again, he'd had plenty of days when yellow paint didn't sound too bad. If Van Gogh had sought in yellow paint what he sought in this weekend, then Mulder ought not to judge._

_"_ Tourmesols, _" she mispronounced while he stood alongside her, their shoulders nearly touching._

_"What?"_

_"Sunflowers."_

_"Oh."_

_They certainly were sunflowers, the whole painting rather yellow and each flower in the painted vase showing various stages of life._

_"Apparently, it changes the longer you look at it," she said as she leaned into her hip, her guide book held between her hands. "You see new things that you didn't think were there before. It's innovative in that way; it's accented and ever-changing despite its finished state."_

_He nodded softly, looked down toward her. With locks of hair springing free from her bob, she was a softer version of herself; he was glad to see that she hadn't packed a single suit for this trip, that her idea of dressing up was like this. As she bit at her lip while she focused on the painting, he watched the mull of her jaw in concentration, eyed the way she blinked slowly at first but then very quickly as she noticed finer details in the painting. He could remember one line from that very early Stevie Nicks album,_ sunflowers and your face fascinate me.

_Then, she caught his glance, so he recoiled while she smirked to herself; she held out her hand, and when he didn't take her hint, she brought her fingers against his, held his hand. The weight of her feeling comfortably heavy in his palm, he stared ahead at the painting. The vibrant greens against the rich yellows were breathtaking; though he wasn't one for art, he could see why this was to be marveled at, why people considered it beautiful. He traced each flower with his eyes, found that none of them changed for him over time but figured that that meant he was simply looking at it incorrectly._

_"This painting was revolutionary because they'd just figured out how to paint with yellow pigment," she said._

_"I guess that's why there's so much yellow."_

_As she laughed, she involuntarily squeezed his hand, and he prayed that she couldn't feel the way his pulse had skyrocketed._

_"How do you know all of this?" he asked._

_"It's in the guidebook."_

_"But the guidebook's in Dutch."_

_"It is if you picked up a Dutch copy and not an English copy."_

_"Oh."_

_She laughed again, squeezing his hand on purpose this time._

"I spy something...white."

"Mulder."

Back at the gate, they sit while the snow outside begins to slow; though the runway's still covered, it’s at least clear enough to begin plowing. In front of them, the little boy is asleep against his mother's chest, the father nodding off on her shoulder. Every so often, Mulder catches Scully staring at them.

Though airports are not the place for big questions, he wants to ask her everything. He wants to ask if he should have kissed her, if she would like that. He wants to ask if they can talk about all of the things that they don't talk about. He wants to ask her about children, about Emily, about family, about her sister. He wants to know why it takes three tries to convince her to order dessert, and even then, she claims not to want any. He wants to know why she'll share her bed and her wool socks with him but refuses to let him so much as open her suitcase.

On the seventh hour of their wait, he can't make idle chitchat anymore, but then again, he never wants to make idle chitchat with her; he wants to know more, but airports are no place for heavy conversation. Taking a deep breath, he hopes they can board sometime within this century.

"I never realized how badly I wanted that."

Glancing to her, he catches her gaze on the little sleeping family who are all thankfully out of earshot.

"It was never on my mind," she says, carding her fingers through her hair. "It was degree then degree then degree. Once I had a career, the timing never seemed right, and I never found a man who would make a good father. They were good men, but they would never have been good fathers."

Uncomfortably, he nods.

"I should've just gone for it," she says, so he sobers.

"You can't say those kinds of things," he insists. "It'll only hurt to think about what could have been."

"I don't even care if it would've meant that I derailed my career at a young age," she says, shaking her head and apparently ignoring him. "Some things are worth so much more than a job."

Reaching out to offer his hand, he watches her stay still.

"It's hard to come to terms with the fact that I'll never be a mother," she admits. "I guess I'd always assumed I would have a family of my own someday but never put any effort toward it."

She takes a deep breath, quirks her head nonchalantly, but she isn't fooling him with her attempt at a casual aura. With a near-watery smile, she offers, "Oh well."

"You could always adopt," he gives, but when she looks to him, he can see her answer in her eyes.

_I don't want to raise a child alone._

"But anyway," she says, promptly changing the subject. "What do you think we'll find when we get back home?"

"Expired milk in the fridge?"

"I meant case-wise."

This, he knows, is airport conversation, but he wishes it weren't.

_"You push off on an angle, like this."_

_She demonstrated with grace and poise, the movements of her figure-skates seeming impossible to replicate. However, he tried to push off anyway, staggered before she could catch him._

_"Here," she said, "take my arm."_

_Momentarily, he stared her down, so she lifted an eyebrow; he took her arm, stood up straight but with a bend in his knees. While she pushed off, he mimicked her motions, and finally, they were skating down the canal, their speed far slower than most of the other skaters but a speed nonetheless. On the sidewalks above them, people bustled around the city, food carts keeping warm and sending off warm vanilla scents. The buildings here were so remarkable and unique, so beautifully un-American that he tripped up while marveling at them._

_"If you end up with a concussion from this, I won't forgive myself," she murmured._

_Skating had been her idea, a dreamy smile on her face as she asked if they could try it; though he could barely walk in a straight line, let alone skate in one, he dared not come between her and that blissful little idea._

_"I can't believe you know how to do this," he said while she turned them both around, headed back to the other end of the canal._

_"Missy and I took lessons for a year, maybe two," she said. "Enough to learn it, not enough to be good."_

_"So i don't get to see you do any tricks?" he pouted._

_"Goodness, no."_

_At a chip in the ice, she faltered, her skates going out on her, but he grabbed for her coat, managed to pull her securely into his arms before she could fall. With one arm wrapped around her back and the other gripping the arm of her coat, he held her there a beat too long, her expression still one of surprise. Though she was standing on her own again, he pretended not to notice, wanted to hold her like this just a moment longer. Without makeup on, she was freckled and bright, and he wanted to memorize the haphazard splay of her eyebrows, the way her hair fussed beneath her hat._

Kiss her, _his mind begged, but he loosened his grip instead._

They're finally - _finally_  - in line to board, their suitcases trailing behind them, their eyes glassy and their muscles exhausted. Time change or no time change, the delay's made resting a whole lot harder, so she leans into him every so often, stabilizes herself against him.

"We'll be home soon," he says softly just to her.

"In seven hours of _soon,_ " she snarks under her breath.

"Yeah, but the time change means that it'll only be one hour later than whatever time it is now once we land in Washington."

"Is that math correct?"

"I think so."

"I'm too tired to check."

The little boy is in line a few people ahead of them and fast asleep in his mother's arms.

"Would you do this again?" he asks her.

"The delay?"

"The trip."

"Oh. Right."

She pauses.

"Would you?" he repeats.

She considers it, then says, "Yeah, I would."

"Why the hesitation?"

"I'm exhausted."

"I'm not sure that's an answer to my question."

She sighs, says, "I don't like having a life that I can uproot on a moment's notice."

Looking down, he knows that that's how his life is, that he uproots his life every other day. This is what silences the part of his brain that wants him to kiss her each time they're close; he could never make her happy in the way she deserves to be happy, so he shouldn't kid himself or tempt himself, for he knows that just one kiss from her would make him a goner. He knows that no one else would compare after her, so he might as well save himself from that hurt.

Passes are being checked; he holds both of theirs out so that she doesn't have to keep track of her ticket. Eying her passport photo, he looks at a younger Scully, her hair lighter and her lips more pink than her usual red. Of course, she's wearing a blazer in the picture.

Though she's ahead of him as they board the plane, he ought to lead, for she walks slowly each time, touches the outside of the plane in superstition, resists until the crowd can push her along. In the tight quarters of economy class, she leaves her suitcase behind as she takes her seat; he always stores her bag because she can't reach the overhead bins. Once he takes his seat next to her, he watches while she looks out the window, while the furrow of her brow proves that she's concocting story after story about how they could crash on this snowy runway.

What would happen if they died here? Her mother doesn't even know she's out of town, and no one would ever bother to look for him. How would anyone find out that they were here?

"I hate flying," she says under her breath, so he takes one of her hands into both of his, massages her knuckles.

When he looks toward her, he realizes that he's overstepped.

"I'm sorry," he says promptly, letting go of her hand, but as he sits back farther in his seat, as he offers her space, she leans toward him, her brow furrowed in concern.

"No, no," she says quietly. "It's fine. That was nice."

"Okay," he says, but he's unsure of what to do now, watches her while she looks down uncomfortably at her lap.

She takes a deep breath, asks, "Would you mind, actually? Just until takeoff's over. The time change, the delay, and the caffeine are really getting to me."

With confusion, he meets her gaze, but when he looks down, he understands; her hand is out and open for him, a silent offering. Though he knows he shouldn't feel this way, he wants this offering to mean everything, and in a way, it does. If there's anything Dana Scully is not, it's dependent, but nonetheless, she's giving him this opportunity, reaching out instead of retreating inwardly. Breathlessly, he takes her hand, rests their joined fingers between their legs.

"Thanks," she says, her eyes downcast.

After taking a deep, heavy breath, she sighs long and hard, looks outside once more. While the attendants go over safety instructions, he nudges her palm, watches the soft smile that comes to her lips after that gesture. As they taxi, he says a quiet _goodbye, Amsterdam_  in his mind, but somehow, he feels that he isn't leaving much behind.

_Though they'd spent nearly four hours in the restaurant, he could still see that she was feeling her two glasses of ridiculously expensive wine, could sense that her giddy but sloppy little gait was from more than just their exquisite dinner. As they walked along the canals and headed back to the hotel, the streetlamps cast the city in a warm, ethereal glow. Though there were others milling about, the place felt quiet, a space just for them. Her eyes up and her gaze intent on the European architecture, she couldn't help smiling._

_"It's so beautiful here," she gushed, a little laugh bubbling over her lips. "It's incredible. I never thought a place could really look like this. It feels like a picture book. It doesn't feel real."_

_As he looked out on the city, he nodded. Though he thought alien autopsy videos were truthful, he too had a hard time believing that this was a real place, that people called this city home, that they were on the same planet as the one where New York City and Detroit existed._

_At the restaurant, they'd shared duck breast and a ribeye, split risotto and steak tartare, cut crab on toast in half so that they could each try some; the place had been lit softly, but nonetheless, he could see each freckle on her face, wondered if she would ever let him stare long enough to count them all. With short eyelashes and bare skin, she'd looked so at peace, had shared his spoon for their - well, his, given that she'd claimed not to want any when he ordered it - crème brûlée because the waiter had only brought one, and the easy pliancy she had here, the way she casually took to the city, felt like breath to him. Though he'd been to Europe plenty of times, he couldn't remember a trip that made him feel as simply happy as this one had even though they'd only been in Amsterdam for fewer than twenty-four hours._

_"God, I never want to go home," she said naively. "I want to wake up here and to go to bed here. I never want to see an American highway again."_

_At that, he smirked, wondered if she would still think that way in the morning._

_"What, are our cross-country trips no longer exciting for you, Scully?" he joked._

_"And the_ coffee, _" she groaned, ignoring what he'd said. "I never thought coffee could taste so good."_

_After dessert, they'd ordered two Dutch coffees, the cold-brewed kind, and absently, he wondered if he would be able to taste it on her lips._

_"This is great," she said breathlessly. "This is good, so good. Why didn't we do this sooner?"_

_"Would you have agreed to this any sooner?"_

_She huffed, said, "Of course not. I'm a stick-in-the-mud."_

_"You're drunk."_

_"Am not," she said, kicking her feet through the snow. "A little buzzed, maybe."_

_"But would you have?"_

_"No, never," she said, looking down at her feet._

_He paused, then asked, "Scully, why did you agree to this?"_

_Slowing her pace, she looked back at him, her mouth ajar with unspoken words. Now, she seemed more sober, her eyes a fearful shade, her lips softly closing as she damped any thoughts she had._

_Then, it began to snow._

They're prepared for liftoff, so her back is pressed firmly against her seat, her seatbelt so tight that he wonders if she can breathe.

"Deep breaths, deep breaths," he whispers while he traces his thumb over her knuckles.

Unlike her, he loves takeoff, gets excited as soon as the plane reaches high speeds, relishes in the feeling of lifting off of the ground. While they gain speed on the runway, he glances out the little plane window, watches as other jets taxi over. In seven hours, they'll be home, and though he spent most of the delay wishing he could be at home, he now wishes that they could get off of this plane and go back to their little hotel room in the city, that he could spend one more night in somewhere other than his empty apartment.

She closes her eyes, tilts her head down while they reach takeoff speed.

"I hate this part," she whispers.

Moving closer to her, he squeezes her hand, his seatbelt tugging him back to a more ethical space. _Don't do this to her. Don't make her pity you. You'll never be able to make her happy, but she would never admit that for fear of hurting you. Let her go._

"It'll be over before you know it," he whispers, "and wasn't it worth it? Getting to see all of the city? In the end, wasn't that worth having to do this?"

"Yes, it was," she admits quietly.

He feels the wheels lifting off of the ground, and beyond her, he watches as they rise, rise, rise into the air, the city falling far below them, the ocean vast beneath them. _Goodbye, Amsterdam_ , he thinks once more, then looks back at her.

Her eyes are cold with fear still, the vein in her neck throbbing, and he wants to pull her into his arms and let her stay there until she can breathe easily again, but he can't do that, not without crossing too many lines. Fault lines, Nazca lines, heart lines, he doesn't want to disturb any of them, doesn't want to overstep.

Then, she meets his gaze, her eyes asking, and for once, he listens to the irrational side of his brain.

_With little sparkling snowflakes around her, she looked so innocent, her stance like a child's, but nonetheless, he needed a mature answer from her. If that question could leave her this still, then he needed an answer._

_Softly, she stepped toward him, snowflakes flitting in her hair, and as she looked up at him, he wanted to drown in her eyes, wanted to write a doctoral thesis on the unspoken words held in them, wondered if he could ever piece her apart. No, he thought; he would never want to._

_"Mulder, I...."_

_She interrupted herself, her gaze down momentarily. Looking back up, she said, "I don't want to ruin this."_

_"Then we won't let it ruin this," he said, shaking his head._

_"So if it's a mistake, we just go with it. We don’t have to overthink it."_

_"Yes, of course."_

_To herself, she nodded, gave herself silent permission for something he couldn't understand, and then, she stood on tiptoe, her palms against his chest as she chastely kissed his cheek, her lips lingering there a few moments too long. When the faint warmth of her mouth moved away from his skin, he longed for her once again, knew that the warm press of her palms would be branded on him forever._

_"That's why," she said shyly, then started walking toward the hotel before he could question her further._

His thumb tracing her jaw, he pulls her softly toward him, her body pliant against his, her hands empty and trembling in her lap; he kisses her with the awkward and unpracticed motions of a teenager, of someone whose last kiss was more years ago than he could count. One beat, two beats, she's too still against him, so he begins to pull away, but before he can, she wraps her mouth around his, her chest warm and close, her lips chapped from the delay but exquisite nonetheless. When the announcement that they can move freely about the cabin comes, she startles, so he moves away, sits back once more.

Staring forward, he knows her well enough to know that they won't talk about it once they get back home; he knows her well enough to know that it'll become a mutual memory that they both will wonder with despair if the other has forgotten. Somehow, the gravity of it all doesn't matter to him, not when he can taste her on his lips, not when he still feels the ghost of her warmth against him, not when they have seven more hours of togetherness. Though they won't talk about it, it still happened, and for that, he can't describe his thankfulness.

She unbuckles her seatbelt, closes the shade over the window, pulls up their two airline blankets and hogs them both because she knows he's too warm for his. While he stills, she leans into him, wraps the blankets around her body, rests her cheek against his shoulder.

"Thank you for the trip," she whispers to him.

Though both of them know that she won't be able to sleep, she closes her eyes anyway, a deflection from further conversation, so he pulls his Walkman from his jacket-pocket, unfurls the headphones. For seven hours, he'll have her and the greatest hits of The The to keep him company.

In the middlemost aisles of the plane, that little boy sits with his parents but stares back at Mulder and Scully, the boy’s eyes wide with strange wonderment; he must've seen them kiss, so Mulder wonders what that could've looked like, if it seemed clunky and awkward or filled with the _finally_  sense he had afterward. How strange it must be, he thinks, to witness something like that, an everyday phenomena, a romantic - in the artistic sense only, he swears - moment.

So he smiles at the kid, Scully soft against his shoulder, "This Is the Day" playing through his headphones. It's time to go home.


End file.
